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Morality and Social Dilemmas in Society

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PDT)

Manchester Grand Hyatt, Cove
Hosted By: Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics & American Economic Association
  • Chair: Angela C. M. de Oliveira, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Rational Choice in Games with Externalities and Contractions

James Cox
,
Georgia State University
Vjollca Sadiraj
,
Georgia State University
Susan Xu Tang
,
Georgia State University

Abstract

Provision games are public good games with positive externalities. Appropriation games are public good games with negative externalities. Data from Andreoni (1995), and many later papers reporting experiments with these games, are inconsistent with standard theory. To model this behavior we offer an extension of Sen’s Property alpha that includes moral reference points, an approach that is consistent with the discussion in Sen (1993). This new Property M is applied to individual choices in public good games with mixed externalities and contractions, and stress-tested with experimental treatments that induce changes in the observable moral reference points by contracting feasible sets or reallocating endowments.

Status and Trust in Representative Leaders: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Rural Sarawak

Abhijit Ramalingam
,
Appalachian State University
Nor Izzatina Abdul Aziz
,
National University of Malaysia
Robert Sugden
,
University of East Anglia

Abstract

We study the role of representative leadership where one agent acts as the representative of a group of team-producers in their joint interaction with outsiders. We study leaders who can secure value for joint team output, for example, by negotiating prices with buyers or bargaining for funds from government agencies. In such cases, leaders can extract rents for themselves, and the interactions thus require trust by followers. We introduce a new sequential public goods game that captures the different functions of leaders and followers. In this setting, we study whether mutual trust emerges, and whether groups are able to use trust relationships to improve group outcomes. We further examine if the effectiveness of leadership is influenced by relative status rankings of leaders and followers. We implement our one-shot experimental game in rural Sarawak where villages have established status hierarchies, and where such leadership roles are relatively new. We find that leaders are very prosocial, more than are followers. Moreover, leaders’ efforts are increasing in their status. Overall, status does increase efficiency. We also present results from a lab experiment designed to study behaviour in repeated interactions. However, the anonymity of the lab implies that we do not study the influence of status in this case.

Information and Collective Action in Angolan Schools

Danila Serra
,
Texas A&M university
Vincenzo Di Maro
,
World Bank
Stefan Leeffers
,
Nova University of Lisbon
Pedro Vicente
,
Nova University of Lisbon

Abstract

A growing literature demonstrates that community driven development (CDD) interventions could be a solution to local accountability problems. We conduct field and lab experiments in Angolan schools with the objective to increase parental participation in the educational process and ultimately improve the performance of teachers and students. The experiments isolate the role that collective action problems play in hindering bottom-up accountability within schools, as opposed to (or in addition to) lack of information. We implemented randomized control trials (RCTs) where we either gave parents information on school quality, or we mobilized them through community gatherings at the school level, or both. In order to measure behavioral changes in parents’ willingness to jointly monitor teachers, we conducted lab in the field experiments with parents and teachers where the act of monitoring and punishing teachers is modeled as a social dilemma.

Civic Engagement as a Second Order Public Good: An Experiment

Louis Putterman
,
Brown University
Jean-Robert Tyran
,
University of Vienna
Kenju Kamei
,
Durham University

Abstract

Effective states solve the problem of financing provision of public goods by mandating contributions in the form of taxes and imposing penalties for non-compliance. However, government might tax and provide public goods accountably only if enough citizens are civically engaged. We study the voluntary cooperative underpinnings of the accountable sanction imposing state by conducting a two-level public goods experiment in which civic engagement can build a sanction scheme to solve the first order public goods dilemma. We find that when civic engagement costs are low relative to the benefits of public good provision, the overall dilemma problem is tractable, though it is never privately profitable to civically engage. In addition to a small average cost-to-benefit ratio, local social interaction among participants boosts cooperation.
Discussant(s)
Nathan Chan
,
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Irene Mussio
,
McMaster University
Sheheryar Banuri
,
University of East Anglia
Billur Aksoy
,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
JEL Classifications
  • D9 - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics